Take Vincent Sarimiento, appointed to the board by the Santa Ana City Council upon which he serves. He isn’t the only delusional OCWD director, but he does ooze with sincerity.

But first, some background.

The OCWD manages the groundwater underneath the Santa Ana river, supplying 70 percent of the drinking water for 2.4 million residents living in 17 cities in central and northern Orange County.

The OCWD was formed in 1933. To this day, its board has performed largely outside of public view, unlike Orange County’s city councils which enjoy regular public scrutiny.

As if upholding sacred tradition, the OCWD board treats the water district as its fiefdom, which it gladly shares with fellow water buffaloes (as long as they flow with the herd) but not with the unknowing rate-paying masses whom it treats as outsiders.

For more than a year, former Huntington Beach mayor Debbie Cook and myself, along with other ratepayers, tried to stop the OCWD board’s misuse of committees to rubber-stamp important actions without public discussion.

And we watched the OCWD board rush to the negotiating table with a developer’s proposed $1 billion ocean desalination plant that will replace imported water at three to 10 times the cost for 30 years—without adding a drop to Orange County’s water supply.

Fifteen of the 17 cities in OCWD’s service area, including Santa Ana, have successfully provided live video streaming for years, but not one of Orange County’s 16 water districts provide it (South Coast Water District broadcasts its meetings on local cable television).

Thanks to Director Jan Flory of Fullerton, however, live streaming for OCWD was at least considered in committee last July 3.

Dewane, transparency’s staunchest foe.

Director Shawn Dewane, who chaired the illegal secret Executive Committee meetings as the board’s past president, disliked Flory’s idea so much that he tried to table it—for one year—by using a rule that does not exist in the District’s bylaws.

Directors Dewane, Denis Bilodeau, Kathryn Barr (now retired), Roger Yoh, and Cathy Green continued to use parliamentary maneuvers to stall a vote on live streaming.

But through Flory’s efforts and growing public pressure, the issue was finally put to a vote by the full board last January 21.

That’s when Sarmiento lost his grip on reality (and syntax), as he often does at board meetings during discussions about transparency.

“In any event, I think talking about this, all of us want to be transparent. I think we all are,” he said.

“And I think we are in the age of open government,” he added, ignoring his own board’s behavior.

Sarmiento uses double talk to keep friends on the board while creating the appearance of objectivity to the public. But his double talk always leads him to put tradition before transparency.

In Sarmiento’s view, the only purpose for live video streaming his Santa Ana City Council meetings is the appearance of openness—because nothing “sinister” could happen, anyway.

“So, I understand why Director Flory believes this is an important step,” he ventured.

“I know at cities we are constantly trying to engage the public as much as possible and disclose as much information as we possibly can, just because we don’t want the perception to be that something is being hidden.” (Emphasis added)

(Even appearances aren’t important at OCWD, Sarmiento believes, because the call for streaming is “driven by a single issue,” i. e., opposition to the proposed desalination plant.)

Open government is a “slippery slope” that could lead to additional expense for closed captioning (currently not required by law) to benefit hearing-impaired ratepayers—a group the board majority didn’t want to accommodate.

“If we want to make sure we engage the public, then let’s be sincere about it and let’s do it thoroughly,” Sarmiento said.

That would mean adding $17,500 to a yearly streaming cost $12,000 to $20,000, after start up costs, according to staff.

As part of a $206 million budget, those figures would compare quite well to other far less useful expenses paid on behalf of OCWD’s directors since last July, including:

Corner Bakery $1,210.09

Lucci’s Deli $6,353.00

Top Hat Productions (Catering) $1,965.66

That’s $9,528 paid by ratepayers in just seven months to feed the directors as an incentive to get them to their meetings.

The District also spent $5,043 on video recording—that could have been done in-house—of seven monthly meetings of the Water Advisory Committee (WACO), a biased public forum intended to push the party line on policy matters.

If Sarmiento is really concerned about a slippery slope, he should oppose the excessive WACO cost and tell his colleagues to eat with their own money.

But it’s not the public’s interest that wins him over at the end of the day.

“I’m just torn that if we go down this path, we go down and do more things, the public could say they want to look at our calendars and they want to look at different other things.”

(In this reporter’s experience, it is the “different other things” that are often worth knowing.)

“That is certainly disclosable,” Sarmiento admitted.

“But we have to be prepared that if we go down this path there’s going to be other demands made on this board. And rightfully so.”

“It’s a public agency,” he concluded, oozing with sincerity, before he voted down the public’s demand for transparency.

Flory’s motion for live video streaming of OCWD board and committee meetings was defeated 8 -2 (Flory and Cathy Green voted yes.) A motion by Director Bilodeau to announce on the OCWD website the availability of audio recordings of all meetings was approved, unanimously.

UPDATE TUESDAY NIGHT!

Vern here. Just as I was editing this piece to cross-post (in the middle of the Huntington Beach High Density meeting actually) I received a text from a Santa Ana pajarito (though it may not be le mot just to refer to hulking Thomas Anthony Gordon as a “little bird”) telling me that Sarmiento has just resigned from the OCWD Board, and has been replaced by fellow councilman Roman Reyna. It would be fun to think that the above article, which came out yesterday, precipitated this event, but… it wasn’t THAT scandalous was it? Anyway, we hope Roman proves more open to real transparency AND less a devotee of Poseidon, than Vince was. ¡Vaya con dios, Vince, and felicidades Roman! You read it here first, loyal readers.New: Latino populist on the Water Board!

What about his appointments to the Citizen Advisory Committee as several appear to be Poseidon honks and can they pass the litmus test of cronyism. You have to be a true crony and be a card carrying member of the pro Poseidon makeup of the OCWD Directors who support this project blindly. Could not stand the heat in the kitchen as its going to get hotter as we are not going away.

Reyna is a bad choice for any board or even a councilman. He does not have the ability to think for himself. Thus he is prone top being handled like a puppet. I predict that sometime in his tenure he will be subject to criminal prosecution due to his compliance and collusion with handlers.

Sarmiento responded to this story – or the postscript at least – at last night’s OCWD meeting, his last one: He didn’t “resign,” it’s a standard rotation to hand the plum over to the next councilman in line.

Okay.

But this is bigger:

Santa Ana friends point out that he’s been regularly claiming 16 miles travel (one-way) to the Fountain Valley OCWD headquarters. This is inconsistent with the place he claims to live, on Fourth Street, to represent SA’s Ward 1 voters – that’s only 6 miles away. It IS consistent with where canny observers have always suspected him to really live – at his mom’s nice place way up in Orange Park Acres, exactly 16 miles away – not even within Santa Ana borders.

Hello, Santa Ana voters – isn’t this going to be a problem with you when Vince runs for re-election next year?

A lot of people have poo poo’d this rumor becase (I presume) it’s origins. However, there is a lot to suggest all is not right in “gotham city”.

Vince is a friendly guy and politically popular in the DPOC he and his wife have always been generous with the Borchard house but, if proved this is a horrible misuse of the public trust. With few if any legitimate news agencies willing to report something like this (my guess is the voice of OC would never upset the anti-Pulido train by going after another). If true, Vince could join Bustamante , Acosta Moreno in prison.

Sarmiento or was it the the SA council displaying further poor judgment in letting “Lil Queenie”- which I believe was Reyna’s gang moniker- into another public body. Lil Queenie can barely string two words together, he is semi-literate at best. Where is the bankrupt OC Wankly’s Gusano Airlines on this?

Z- True, I would prefer literate cabal members since the waterboarders read long and complercated donkuments. Reyna is notorious in his hood, I don’t know his exact gang affiliation, but Eme y eme, or Michxelle Martinez, is commonly referred to as a well-known former crack dealer. I believe she belonged to a group named after a TV show, Hogan’s Heroes? The Flintstones? Name escapes me.